Meaghan Tuohey Has Secured Visas for Librarians and Equestrians. She’ll Learn Your Industry Too

Meaghan Tuohey, like most people, had never thought much about subscription management before a case landed on her desk. The client was a professional librarian who had built a system for tracking hundreds of software subscriptions across hospital networks and multinational corporations.

Though it was a field she had never heard of, after weeks of research, Meaghan built a case arguing that it was a genuine innovation, citing trade journal coverage, industry awards, and letters from organizations using the system.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ultimately agreed. The librarian got his O-1 visa.

Learning the language of every industry

On any given day, Meaghan might be learning about a number of jobs: a software engineer, an oil and gas pipeline specialist, or an Olympic equestrian. Often, these industries are new to her. But she treats this as an advantage.

Clients tend to assume everyone shares their expertise, she said. They use inscrutable acronyms. They gloss over technical details. 

“If you’re already an expert in that field, you’re going to have that little blind spot of what other people don’t know,” she said.

Her solution is to read everything, to look up what she doesn’t understand, and to keep asking questions until she can explain the work clearly to someone with no technical background. Someone like the USCIS officer who’s going to read the petition.

“You’ve got to make it so that I can understand what you’re doing,” Meaghan said. “If I have questions, USCIS is going to have questions.”

Building an extraordinary ability case

Meaghan starts every extraordinary ability petition the same way.

“The letters of recommendation are where I always start,” she said. “That’s always the first thing I try to get done in a case.”

She aims for five to seven letters per petition, drawn from two groups:

1. Colleagues or supervisors from inside the client’s organization, as senior as possible
2. Colleagues, collaborators or industry figures from outside the client’s organization who know their work, but don’t have a direct stake in the outcome.

The combination helps show that the client’s contributions have been recognized and adopted beyond their immediate employer.

Clients typically come up with a list of 10 or 11 potential letter writers, which Meaghan narrows, looking at LinkedIn profiles, titles, and whether the writers themselves are recognized in their field.

The letters should tell USCIS not only what the client did, but why it mattered.

Building that letter list has gotten harder. In recent months, Meaghan has noticed something she hasn’t encountered in three decades of practice: People saying no.

Potential recommenders, whether they’re immigrants or U.S. citizens, are declining to put their names on letters. Some say they’re reluctant to be associated with anything immigration-related. Others, particularly those on visas themselves, worry about drawing unwanted attention.

Meaghan believes recommenders have little reason for concern for accurate and truthful letters. USCIS doesn’t have the resources to go after individual letter writers, unless they have reason to suspect fraud. But reassurance only goes so far right now.

“I’ve been doing immigration law for a long time,” Meaghan said. “I’ve gone through all the post-9/11 issues we had. I think this is the highest level of widespread fear that I have seen in my career.”

So, where possible, Meaghan  suggests seeking letters from U.S. citizens.

Preparing for RFEs

Meaghan is a self-described pessimist.

“I go into every case thinking: What can go wrong with this case, and how can I stop it from going wrong?”

That shapes how she builds every petition, taking what she calls a “belt-and-suspenders” approach, anticipating objections, and assuming the officer will question everything.

That assumption has proven true. Early in her career, Meaghan received a request for evidence (RFE) on an H-1B case asking her to prove that the client’s job required a bachelor’s degree. The client was an architect. 

The case was ultimately approved, and the lesson stuck with Meaghan.

“Nothing fazes me anymore,” she said. “Nothing shocks me with what they’re going to ask for.”

Under the current administration, that level of scrutiny has become more common. RFEs are a possibility across case types, even for strong petitions.

“I’m always fearing the worst is going to happen and I want to make sure it doesn’t,” Tuohey said. “Usually the worst doesn’t happen.”

Thirty years in

Meaghan didn’t set out to be an immigration lawyer. Her first job out of Widener University School of Law was at a large New Jersey firm focused on securities work. She hated it. 

But then a partner asked her to help with pro bono asylum work. She had never studied immigration law or thought much about it, but she got hooked.

She spent the next five years at Catholic Community Services in Newark, eventually running their immigration and refugee resettlement program. Private practice followed, ultimately at her own solo practice, focused on immigration and bankruptcy law. She joined Manifest Law as a co-counsel in January.

The draw has always been her clients.

“I try to have a high level of empathy for what they’re going through,” Meaghan said. “I have so much respect and admiration for people who are willing to pick up their whole lives, move to a foreign country, and start all over again. It’s an extraordinary type of person who’s willing to do that.”